Bragging Rights
by Mariagoner
Summary: Vaan was never the sort of person who longed for complexity. Somehow, it ended up finding him anyway. Vaan X Balthier [Romance], Vaan X Penelo [Friendship].


Part one of a two or three chapter fic, written for a Valentine's Day gift exchange with the ever inventive Acerbitas. 'Tis rather early... but happy holiday, sweetness! I do hope you enjoy and the second part will (hopefully) be up by V-Day!

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**Title: Bragging Rights**

**Fandom: Final Fantasy XII**

**Pairings: Vaan X Balthier, Vaan X Penelo Friendship**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Summary: Vaan was never the sort of person who longed for complexity. Somehow, it ended up finding him anyway.**

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Once upon a time, long before his adventures with a motley crew of would-be world saviors began, Vaan had considered himself to be quite the ladies' man.

He didn't mean to brag, of course, but he pretty much thought he was the complete package in terms of attracting them. His pretty face aside (and not that he liked to gloat, but his and Reks' back in the day were _very_ pretty faces indeed), Vaan had always had a certainly something that made ladies flock to his side. You could call it charisma, you could call it animal magnetism or you could call it a really tragic, heroic, drama-in-the-making back story. In fact, you could call it anything you'd like because the results were always the same: sexy, seductive women swooning all over themselves to get a taste of the Ratsbane.

…Or at least, that was what Vaan _assumed_ would happen just as soon as he made it out of Rabanastre and found any people cool enough to hang out with, anyway. For now, he was pretty much stuck with a rag-tag band of plucky street orphans that was one chorus away from a rousing musical and a pig-tailed nuisance who insisted on following him around and "fixing his messes" (as she called it-- he figured she was more cramping his style)… but hell, he wasn't called the Eternal Optimist by Migelo for nothing. Vaan had about as much faith in his eventual fortune as he did bravery (a near endless bounty that, as Penelo liked to say, mostly made up for his deficit of brains.) And he felt very, very sure that as soon as he, oh say, got the chance to maybe apprentice himself to some older sky pirates and prove himself, he'd finally have the chance to really strut his stuff and show off what sort of man he really was.

Then he had made the fatal mistake of sharing his insights with his main partner-in-crime, Penelo. When she finally got back on her feet from being bowled over with laughter, which Vaan felt was overdoing things, she had asked him about whether he'd been spending too much time dipping into Old Dalan's "pharmaceutical stash" again. And that was about when Vaan has lost it. After all, if he couldn't even count on his own _best friend_ to get his back up on this, what _could_ he count on?!

He was total chick bait and he had all the tragic background any hero could ever want and when he grew up, he was going to be a famous sky pirate and sail through the clouds as free as a bird and have girls lined up at every port town waiting to crawl into his skivvies. And if _someone_ didn't like his plans, she could just stay at home and not go on _crazy awesome adventures_ as his navigator in the future, if she knew what he meant and he thought _she did_.

That mostly managed to shut Penelo up, though he still thought the little twist she got to her mouth every time he bought up his irresistible charms was a mite suspicious. But none of that really mattered because eventually he had met two genuine, honest-to-God, ripped-straight-from-the-bounty-board sky pirates... But somehow, things only ended up being even _more_ confused than they had been previously.

Because one of them had been just as sexy as anything he had ever thought about in his dreams and he could happily spend hours watching her butt as she went before him in battle, so that was great, even if she never did tell anyone her age and for all he knew, she even be over _thirty_. (_Ewww_.)

But the other of them... well, the other of them should have been everything he _wanted_ to be.

But Balthier ended up being everything Vaan wanted, period. And that... that just changed _everything_.

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**Author's Note**: This is my first dip into the slashy pond of fandom, as well as my first effort at writing Vaan from inside his sweet, strange, rather stunted little mind. Comments and _especially_ constructive crit are especially welcome for this! And thanks for taking the time to read, btw.


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